With over 20 years of experience covering the Steelers for the Observer-Reporter, Dale Lolley will let you know the insider scoop. Dale can also be heard on the Steelers radio network pre-game show on WDVE-FM game days and Tuesday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. on ESPN 970-AM and WDVE during the season as a host of the Antonio Brown Show. Follow him on Twitter at @dlolleyor

I've often wondered what it is teams look for during OTA's. You can't tell how linemen look or how well receivers handle contact until pads are put on during training camp. Are coaches looking for specific things? For instance, are they looking at how well the receivers can run routes?

It was all backup guys since a number of the starters weren't there. For all I know, it could have been a look team, but it was interesting since the two tackles were the two kids they drafted this year.I'm sure the coaches are looking for crisp routes. They have a better idea of what a play is supposed to look like when they see it on film than I do standing there watching.Mostly, they're going over plays and teaching the defensive scheme.

Thomas, thanks, but the article stresses that his work this off-season is what is impressing the coaches:

"But one thing that won't hurt Mundy is the favorable impression he has been making during the practices that resumed Tuesday at the team's South Side facility."

And they even go on to note that he did not have much of a chance to make an impression last pre-season:

"Mundy got little playing time during his first preseason. The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder logged fewer than 10 plays before sustaining a high ankle sprain in the Steelers' 2008 preseason opener against the Eagles."

So I'm just wondering if Dale has seen anything in the guy, and how seriously we can take the Trib's puff-piece.

1.) While he got hurt early in the preseason, he did re-sign with the Steelers in early Nov. & spent the rest of the season on the practice squad. So the coaches have been seeing him for longer than a just TC & one preseason game.

2.) The reason he's "impressing" in OTAs is because he's running with the first team & holding his own. He and Ty Carter (IIRC) are running first team with Polamalu & Ryan Clark not in attendance. So unlike other rooks who are going against undrafted FAs Mundy is going against Ben, Tone, Heath Miller, Willie Parker, etc. and is doing pretty well.

I guess it was the year after Hartings retired he was on the Tunch and Wolf TV show. Tunch and Wolf starting talking about how much weight Hartings had lost and Jeff said he had trouble keeping weight on and was eating all the time when he played. He said one of the best things about retirement was he didn't have to eat all the time to keep his playing weight and that he was enjoying eating what he wanted whenhe wanted.

The doctors have told Clark it wouldn't be a good idea. We'll see. I wouldn't expect it. He could die, after all.

As for Mundy, he's a very bright kid. In fact, his teammates call him Wunderlic because he aced it. Add to that the fact that he's probably their most physically imposing safety. He reminds me of a bigger version of Ryan Clark.

If Mundy and Keenan Lewis both pan out that would give us a really big intimidating secondary, especially when you consider we have Troy and 6'1 Ike back there.

Not that Ryan Clark isn't already intimidating alot of people. I don't think Willis Macghee will go out for another pass against the Steelers the rest of his career without imagining Clark is coming to destroy him.

Not trying to contradict you but you are the first person I have seen that has reported that Clark will risk major health repercussions from playing in Denver, according an article in the NY Times before the Super Bowl, this was posted:

"I just (try to) live," Clark said. "They said I should be fine and I am praying that will be so. The only question is will I ever play in Denver again, and because they are on our schedule next year, we do have to travel out there.

"(Doctors) said I should be fine - their comforting words were, 'Well, the only organs it will affect, we already took out.'"

It would be interesting if you could get a little more scoop on his status for that game.

Not to take anything from Ryan Mundy because a 29 on the Wonderlic is a good score, but to "ace" the test would be answering all 50 questions correctly within the allotted 12 minutes as Pat McNally did.